Category - Politics

As we’ve recently passed the 100-year mark since some women first got the vote, I think it’s a good time to talk about citizen power. We all know power is very unequally distributed in UK and US society, and this concentration of power at the top of...

2017 was a dramatic year for climate news, wasn’t it? Trump promised to yank the US out of the Paris Agreement and scrap the Clean Power Plan. Yet this only seemed to make other countries (and US cities, states and companies) more determined...

The other day I saw a tweet that had escaped its platform of birth to become a Facebook meme. I can’t find it, but it said something like: “Can we all please stop acting like ordinary people are to blame for climate change because we won’t take 5...

So last week saw the finale of the 2017 climate summit – aka “COP23” for short. Yet another round of talks in the never-ending talking shop that is the global climate political process. So what? It’s easy for the annual UN...

What do we want? Evidence based policy! When do we want it? After peer review! My personal high point of the London March for Science must have been when someone started chanting that. So witty. So good. I attended the March for Science in London...

Lately there’s been a lot of talk about political polarisation and ideological bubbles. Brexit in the UK, Trump in America and an apparent withering of the centre ground across Europe while people increasingly go to the radical Right or Left. As...

Today, I’m feeling sad and reflective. Partly because I’m going to a funeral, and partly because of the horrific attack on Westminster yesterday. I’m sad for the victims and their families and the witnesses, and I’m shaken because of the powerful...

You’ve heard it all before. Walk to work. Turn off the lights. Take a reusable coffee cup. Avoid palm oil. Don’t leave the tap running. Take your own bag. Buy organic. There are a million things you can do in your personal life to reduce your...